Thoughts on Life, Love, Politics, Hypocrisy and Coming Out in Mid-Life

Monday, May 30, 2016

Americans Need to Know More History

As I have noted numerous times, I was a history major in college and believe that in order to have an informed population, far more Americans desperately need to know more history. If more Americans were knowledgeable of American history, for example, they's know that America was not founded as a "Christian nation." Likewise, they'd better understand the futility of many of America's recent wars that have been waged with almost zero knowledge of the history of Indochina in the case of the Vietnam War disaster and most recently in the seemingly endless disasters in the Middle East. They would also recognize the danger posed by Neo-fascists like Donald Trump and his hate and bigotry motivated followers. An op-ed in the Los Angeles Times looks at why we need more history majors to counter the dangers we face due to Americans' ignorance of accurate history. Here are highlights:

Since the beginning of the Great Recession in 2007, the
history major has lost significant market share in academia, declining from
2.2% of all undergraduate degrees to 1.7%. The graduating class of 2014,
the most recent for which there are national data, included 9% fewer history
majors than the previous year’s cohort, compounding a 2.8% decrease the year
before that. The drop is most pronounced at large research universities and
prestigious liberal arts colleges.

This is unfortunate — not just
for those colleges, but for our economy and polity.

Conventional wisdom offers its usual facile answers for
these trends: Students (sometimes pressured by parents paying the tuition)
choose fields more likely to yield high-paying employment right after
graduation — something “useful,” like business (19% of diplomas), or
technology-oriented. History looks like a bad bet.

Politicians both draw on those
simplicities and perpetuate them . . . . . Governors oppose public spending on
“useless” college majors. History, like its humanistic brethren, might prepare
our young people to be citizens, but it supposedly does not prepare workers —
at least not well paid ones.

Over the long run, however, graduates in history and
other humanities disciplines do well financially. Rubio would be surprised to
learn that after 15 years, those philosophy majors have more lucrative careers
than college graduates with business degrees. History majors’ mid-career
salaries are on par with those holding business bachelor's degrees.
Notably these salaryfindingsexclude those who went on to
attain a law or other graduate degree.

The utility of disciplines that
prepare critical thinkers escapes personnel offices, pundits and politicians (some
of whom perhaps would prefer that colleges graduate more followers and fewer
leaders). But it shouldn’t. Labor markets in the United States and other
countries are unstable and unpredictable. In this environment — especially
given the expectation of career changes — the most useful degrees are those
that can open multiple doors, and those that prepare one to learn rather than
do some specific thing.

History students, in particular, sift through substantial
amounts of information, organize it, and make sense of it. In the process they
learn how to infer what drives and motivates human behavior from elections to
social movements to board rooms.

Employers interested in
recruiting future managers should understand (and many do) that historical
thinking prepares one for leadership because history is about change —
envisioning it, planning for it, making it last. In an election season we are
reminded regularly that success often goes to whoever can articulate the most
compelling narrative. History majors learn to do that.

Everything has a history. To
think historically is to recognize that all problems, all situations, all
institutions exist in contexts that must be understood before informed
decisions can be made. No entity — corporate, government, nonprofit — can
afford not to have a historian at the table. We need more history majors,
not fewer.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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